Razer Tease Project Fiona, Which Is “Badass”

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I have no idea what an “all-new form factor” is, but that is the ridiculous phrase Razer are using to describe something that’s currently dubbed Project Fiona, due to be announced properly on the 10th. Appearing on their incredibly unhelpfully named pcgamingisnotdead.com website (er, yeah, we all knew that thanks) is a deliberately opaque trailer for, um, something. Whatever it is, Razer assures that “it’s not simple, it’s not delightful, it’s not magical”. But it is, they inform, “just badass”.

The last time we were taken through this rigamorale was for the announcement of the Razer Blade, an astonishingly expensive gaming laptop. For nearly $3000 you will be able to get a middling-spec gaming machine, that’s barely 2cm thick and only 3.2kg. Arguments in favour of a standardisation of PC specs are one thing. Expecting people to pay three times the price of a higher specced desktop machine is another. Goodness knows where that one’s heading.

But this is something else, and The Verge reckons it’s going to be the Razer Switchblade, about which we heard much last year, but never saw a release. That was promising what was essentially a gaming netbook, with a touchscreen replacing the need for a mouse. I think. It’s a touch problematic that a year ago they were talking about the Atom chip they’d developed with Intel, and then went completely silent and didn’t release it. Also, I’m not quite sure how having my hand in front of the screen the entire time is going to be entirely conducive to gaming. That did strike me as the dumbest idea of all time. Although the keyboard is flipping ace (see the link above).

If it’s that, I absolutely cannot see it working without some sort of retractable track pad. If it’s not, then it’s something else, and it’s definitely not going to be delightful. They say so.

PC gaming is not dead? Well it would be if everyone had to play their games on those ridiculous laptops they make. Price way over the top. Hardware, poorly balanced. Why would anyone buy such a device? Stupid.

I was commenting that the console (gaming) market, which is very heavily standardised, never has premature announcements of its death, and is much stronger than the PC gaming market. Perhaps, taking a note from consoles, some standardisation wouldn’t be hurtful to PC gaming, and may even be beneficial. Standardisation shouldn’t be dismissed off hand ‘because it’s a console thing’.

I don’t know where the eating of s*** comes in, but you should probably keep hobbies like that to yourself. This really isn’t the place to reveal your Fecal-freak nature.

I really like Razer’s mouses, but their company attitude is such a turn off. When I opened my DeathAdder and saw the pamphlet to visit their site and read the guide for “pz0wn1ng n00bz liek a l33t pr0” or whatever it was called I seriously reconsidered the purchase for a moment.

Some of their mice are pretty good, but they tend to use overly plasticky designs.

The rest of Razer’s stuff is frankly embarrassing. I like gaming as much as the next guy, but I don’t want to have to hide half my computer bits when I have a date over. LEDS and awesome curvy plastic bits all over the place, gah.

Edit: Woops, should have said “Badass”, not awesome since this is Razer.

I like my Razer Carcharias quite a lot, even if it does violate the basic rules of naming stuff*. As far as mice go I prefer my Logitech G700. I’d prefer it even more if they just brought the G7 back and gave it the toggleable spinny frictionless mousewheel, but apparently they’ve decided that rechargeable Ni-MH AA batteries are better than 2 quick-swappable Li-Ion packs.

For reference, a friend has a Razer Naga and a Razer Lachesis*.

*”1. You shall not give your company or products a name that requires customers to rely on Google Autocorrect in order to find it.”

I was actually quite surprised at the quality of the Razer BlackWidow. It’s among the cheapest mechanical keyboards available, but it works well. I like my Ducky keyboard more, but I wasn’t disappointed with the BlackWidow.

I never bought anything from razer because their stuff is pretty much exclusively made for right-handed people, but as far as expensive gaming peripherals go I do believe a good mouse makes some difference in precision and speed. My RTS performance definitely improved after I started using better mouses.

I had a Microsoft/Razer Habu. What a nightmare. It had serious problems getting Windows to recognize it as anything other than “Generic Mouse”, and both companies pointed the finger at the other and basically stopped supporting it.

Worse was the excessively flashy but horrible mouse software it came with, which I assume came from Razer and seemed designed to appeal to 14 year old L337 d00D$. I’ve avoided Razer since then.

Odd, I’ve been using the HABU for about 3 or 4 years now and I think it’s brilliant. Ergonomically it’s the only mouse that ever came close to the classic Intelli Mouse Explorer 1.0 – the first optical one from Microsoft, which was an absolute delight to use. So delightful indeed that I’ve been buying used ones and attic-finds on eBay until the HABU was released and I bought it on the spot.

I know most people love those Logitech bricks but they never ever felt right for me.

I couldn’t be happier with my second generation (3,500 DPI) DeathAdder and Megalodon. The first has the absolute best ergonomics of any mouse I’ve used so far (I simply despise Logitech’s design, and SteelSeries never seemed all that special) and some great accuracy. While the Megalodon produces some astonishingly clean sound for its price and category; most gaming headsets are utterly abysmal in this respect. (Do note, I’m comparing them with Shure SE425 IEMs and Sennheiser HD600 headphones. Comparatively, it’s obviously still a bit flat (especially at the high end), but it easily matches or even trumps comparatively priced headphones.)

But I must agree, their attitude is just terrible. I couldn’t help but cringe at their first pcgamingisnotdead campaign. And their “1337” descriptions with claims of instant increase of gaming ability are fairly annoying. (Though they do manage to poke fun at themselves for the latter during their April Fools stuff)

Edit: And I have to add, their braided cables are just fantastic. I’ve yet to see peripherals with more durable and flexible cables.

Yep, I vote steelseries also. The Xai Laser is hands down the best mouse I’ve ever had and I’ve had many others before. Love the turbo feature to increase sensitivity by press of a button (great for bigger resolution Desktop or a multiple screen setup).

And you know what else? It makes this shit look good! It’s sooo slick too and feels amazing to hold. Seriously I’m half in love with that thing. The mouse menu on the bottom side of the mouse is also really cool. Quality product through and through.http://steelseries.com/products/mice/steelseries-xai-laser

I dig their keyboards too. Simple, slick and mostly really good quality.

I just replaced my Razer diamondback mouse with a Cyborg RAT mouse (a COD black ops version that was half price). It seems very heavy compared to the Diamondback even without putting in any of the optional weights, but the software, game profiles, extra buttons (sniper mode) and extra scroll wheel are making me think it’ll be much better when I get used to it.

When I looked at keyboards early last year I went with a steelseries 7g – I’ve always had an irrational hatred of multimedia keyboards with all the extra buttons. The clicky feel of the 7g and it’s solidity is great. I even ended up getting an extra one for at work.

@Ceriphim: I’d absolutely still be using my G7 if the primary mouse button hadn’t broken (it started double-clicking every time I clicked it once. Sometimes triple or quadruple clicking, too). They sent me an MX revolution as a warranty replacement (the G7 being discontinued), but after a year it developed exactly the same fault. The G700 was a warranty replacement for the MX Revolution, and it’s almost as good as the original G7!

Say what you like, Logitech’s warranty is pretty good. Their left mouse buttons, perhaps not so much…

It’s worth noting that my original G15 keyboard (the one with the blue backlights and B&W screen) still works as well as it did on day one, and is still supported well with the gaming drivers.

@Sweedums
I’m sure a lot of people buy these gamer mouses hoping to increase their k/d ratio, but for me their appeal has always been the increased comfort and extra buttons. I don’t even pay attention to response time™, DPS™, double laser sensors with optional LED support™ and heavy duty gyroscopic-controlled earthquake-resistant ice gliding mouse wheels™ when I’m shopping for a mouse. I just go to a store, put my hands on all the mouses on display and buy the one that feels most comfortable.

@Durkonkell
Crap, the Logitech G500 I’ve been using for less than a year started showing signs of this doubleclick syndrome. I hear lots of complains about the longevity of Razer products, but my DeathAdder endured almost 5 years of constant use before it broke.

Scorn often stems from ignorance. Of course no piece of hardware is going to magically increase your skill level, but decent equipment will be significantly less of a hindrance than its shitty counterpart. In the case of mice, many will simply not work properly at high speeds. Lots of FPS gamers use low sensitivity, and can easily hit the speeds required to experience significant negative acceleration, or in some cases total malfunction.

I really like Logitech mouses for the simple reason that their standard gaming mouse size/shape is perfect for my hands and has been since before I started buying mice with gaming in mind. In fact, I don’t think I’ve bought any of their high-profile gaming mice as their general-purpose mice with the same form work just fine.

Their controllers continue to disappoint. I actually like their funky D-pads but the quality of their analog sticks is embarrassing. I just can’t bring myself to buy a 360 controller out of spite for all the games that don’t work well without one. :P I’m now looking at actual PS3 controllers, since that’s the layout that brought me to Logitech’s crappy offerings anyway.

I’ve used a Razer Lachesis for the past 5 or so years and I’ve got absolutely no complaints there, it’s a pretty excellent mouse. Have to agree on the attitude though, and I can’t comment on anything but Razer’s mice (I’ve used a logitech keyboard for as long as I can remember).

Do Razor actually finish things? The only times I ever hear them mentioned is when they’re promoting some idea/work-in-progress, which gives the impression that the end results are either not worth a mention, or never actually eventuate at all.

Ridiculously expensive, really poorly balanced laptops, not monster rigs :| or did they make stationaries? I dunno, those “Pc gaming is not dead” laptops were some of the most ridiculous builds I’ve ever seen. They wouldn’t even be able to run current games at max at their native resolution, and instead of spending on a GPU they put money into hugely expensive CPUs that do absolutely nothing for gaming…

Actually the only reason why I was interested in that laptop was for the touchscreen buttonpad thingy that could be used in games :) It’s like the G17/G19 except you can use the shiny screen as buttons.

I’ve been looking forward to something like this for ages, use pre-made controls on the touchscreen or “create” your own controls! Awesome!

It’s not a touch pad butlink to chproducts.com
It’s not quite an Ergodex DX1euther, which it pretty much replaces, but the trade off of having to load a map per game instead of switching on the fly isn’t bad when you consider you have quite few more options and response time, in my two weeks worth of use, seems to be slightly better than the DX1. And I don’t play flight sims, mostly FPS, RPG

“Also, I’m not quite sure how having my hand in front of the screen the entire time is going to be entirely conducive to gaming.”

I got an iPad2 recently, and of course one of the first things I tried were a few games. When the game is written in a way that’s tightly integrated to touch control, it works fine. I’ve even been having fun with a port of Sid Meir’s Pirates! on the iPad. A few of the minigames (like dancing and sword fights) actually work much better with touch/swipe control…. I could never do that dancing part of the game very well on the old PC version. But it has to be designed that way in the software, not just an ad-hoc hardware overlay. I can’t see that working very well, if that’s what this is, and it probably isn’t anyway.

“an ad-hoc hardware overlay”
Yeah, this is the problem with that device – it’s neither a laptop nor a tablet, and for this to work, you have to design software specifically for it. Of course no developer would do that as there will never be enough users to make it worthwhile. Instead it’ll be running software designed for PCs which at best have only the most basic support for the custom hardware, but more likely no support at all.

Er … I hear flash games for tablet and smart phones are doing amazingly well. Perhaps you underestimate the extent to which these products get around. All the adults in my extended family have Kindle Fire’s and Ipad’s. A bunch of 20-somethings at my sister’s law school have Ipads. My sisters all have touch phones. And we aren’t exactly up to our ears in this kind of thing. We’re still on the sort-of-old square CRT television that fits in a modest corner. All of the evidence I’ve seen or read suggests that the number of hip teenagers getting these things surely must be worth something to the games industry.

Of course, the kind of games “non-gamers” are interested in can be very, very different. The Sims is popular with everyone and their dog’s cousin and tends to outsell a lot of the big hardcore games. Likewise we as a group consistently underestimate the power of consoles to bring in non-gamers or at least gamers less interested in classic, hard-core games the PC is used to.

I prefer sacrificing physical flexibility for technological flexibility, but when we get to the point where I can reliably record and muck with music on something that fits in my pocket right next to my microphone, cell-phone, and wallet … well, it’s going to make even my modest laptop seem a bit silly. Well … that’s not true. I’ve been a tech junkie since I was a kid. I want the tools. I want the toys. If I had the cash my computer would be a monster of a desktop with everything I could throw into it. But the point stands, even if it doesn’t apply personally. Computing is moving away from the PC platform as we know it. I doubt it will leave entirely, but as more and more software providers find it worth their while to cater to the more mobile platforms so, too, will game companies and designers. It is already happening.

Our medium isn’t dying. A new one is growing. And that’s going to do SOMETHING to ours, though it’s hard to say what at this point.

The games they showed are things which are all fairly suitable for joypad play so it could perhaps be a PSP style PC hand-held. That would be quite neat although I dare say I’m not willing to paying anything close to what they want to charge.

EDIT: Although I think my bet is on a tablet PC. Perhaps a tablet PC with a keyboard dock to take on the the (Android) Asus Eee Transformer.

In a perfect world, this would be a brain-control peripheral. With current tech it would be possible, although extremely hard to use and insensitive (you could map maybe 2 buttons to it, possibly 4, but no axes).

The other thing about brain control is that it’s motion control without the motion control. You still use gestures. It doesn’t pick up those gestures, of course, but the very act of making those gestures helps you concentrate on the ‘thought’ you want the headset to pick up.

Not to say brain-monitoring techniques have no place in gaming, but I think it’s more useful for biofeedback (e.g. emotion detection for the purposes of adaptivity) than as a control mechanism. Which isn’t quite as whiz-bang, and therefore a harder sell.

Were they bad on PC? I thought Assassin’s Creed was just dandy on PC. Or does a title have to be an exclusive and/or filled with fiddly menus to be a “real” PC game? I love Civilization, but I think it’s better because it would work out badly on a console. I sincerely hope you’re not one of those PC gaming reactionaries. Consoles are just as old and rich and proud a part of gaming tradition as computers are. Personally, I think the PC medium itself is nearly irrelevant to the games I enjoy tending to be on PC. It’s all about audience and partially about control scheme (though that’s easy as heck to get around).

I’ve been working with Razer extensively on this* and I can guarantee* that you’ve got it wrong. Fiona is the code name for Intel/Razer’s “Staple On Technology” initiative. Basically, you can just staple the Fiona chipset to anything vaguely electronic and turn it into a gaming monster. Old walkman? Staple On Processing turns it into a H.A.W.X-box. Fancy toaster? Staple On Graphics mean that the toaster is now capable of graphics with as much fidelity and depth as Assassin’s Creed. Blinky shoes? More like Badass Shoes when you Staple On.

Warning: You need to use real staples. Glue, twine, or Texas-Style Fork Nails will cause a Staple On cascade.

whats needed is something that feels more natural and is more accurate than a gamepad for FPS games. The old MS “Dual Strike” gamepad was on the right path but still needed far more development. Tech like the Logitech navigator puck or the old space-orb had/has potential as well.

Color me an old fogey, but I still like using a cheapo Logitech mouse I spent $20 on. The money saved from not getting one of those fancy pants mice goes toward a year’s supply of games bought at the following Steam sale.

That’s … one of the more perplexing marketing gimmicks I’ve seen in a long time. “You don’t need our product. At all. Seriously, it just makes everything more expensive, fiddly and stereotypically gamer-ish. But we think you’ll want it for precisely that reason.”

I guess … I appreciate the honesty. Except their lack of hyperbole is done so intently, I won–oh god. Quick! Get me some sharpened Coldplay CDs!

I really think they are having a dig at Apple in every facet. Expensive and unnecessary but cool (we hope) is basically the Apple credo. Worked like a charm too.
Perhaps a little too meta and satirical for this kind of thing (and also Too Soon!), but anyway.

Fair enough. I respect the success and quality of Apple products even though their products really aren’t my kind of thing. If it weren’t for their mostly wonderful customer service I wouldn’t even be tempted … but damn does that make Apple products tempting. I’m so horribly starved of good customer service …

I remember the first time I ever called Dell tech support. Wonderful experience. A nice, helpful guy who (as the third or fourth thing he said to me) asked how I would rate my tech experience level. No tech support employee has ever asked me that since and I have, predictably, never had as helpful a support session from commercial channels. That’s also the last time I called Dell and heard an American accent; on it’s own this would be fine if the utter uselessness of the people on the other end didn’t make it clear they were part of one of those damn official-trouble-shooter-only support farms somewhere (possibly here in the US, most likely not). I called my bank recently and damn was it refreshing to have good service; I felt horrible and xenophobic when the thick Chicago accent I heard made me relaxed and hopeful but I’m fairly sure it was my first real qualified customer service agent in a long time. I felt so grateful to him. It saddens me deeply that getting *agreeable, respectable, consistent* service is grounds for praising any company–let alone a company that deals with people’s life savings. Also, in my defense, the accent thing isn’t an issue in person; I know when I meet a tech support person that they aren’t (figuratively) phoning it in a much sooner in the conversation.

Of course, even domestically, those trouble-shoot-tethered bastards are way too common and it’s nigh impossible to get around them when you’re experienced enough to need better help.

Oh there’s nothing especially wrong with Apple stuff and plenty that’s right. But they are basically prestige priced, elitist and exclusive as far as positioning themselves in the market (and the industry for that matter) goes.
This seems like Razor going “Hey we’re just like that too, kinda! But with gaming! Make us rich like them!” (ok, maybe not that last bit, but I’m sure they’d like that)

Ah yes, Razer. The company that sells products that make the buyer look like a loser to non-gamers, and a gullible bastard to real gamers. My older brother bought a notebook for about $700 that was about as powerful (if not moreso) than the Blade.

“Business is changing, changing at the speed of information. Whoever adapts first wins – in order to compete we innovate; in order to innovate we redefine; and how do we redefine? With a new definition! ”

I don’t believe anyone would waste their time making a 256 MB SSD at this stage.

That said, I am amused by their claim that it’s “The World’s First True Gaming Laptop” because, obviously, any previous gaming laptops are by definition not “True Gaming Laptops” because, obviously, they didn’t make them so they can’t be. It’s always nice to see them try to turn a point of ignorance into a point of strength.

I love Razer. Both me and my wife have a Razer pad and a Razer mouse (Lachesis and Imperator). When the time to replace it comes, it will be a Razer mouse again because they work great, look great and feel great. I will probably at some point buy their mechanical keyboard as well.

…but this ad is beyond bad. Which happens to rhyme, which makes it true.

I had plenty o´cash around 2000´ so i bought a Razer mouse- turns out it was about 4 times more sensitive than i´d ever need for playing Counterstrike. I set it to around 1/4th sensitivity and played onwards.
We eventually maybe it to 40th on world rankings before my Clan disbanded…..
But i wouldnt say the mouse had much to do with it.
I currently have a Logitech MX518 which is super nice, has highly responsive click buttons…. not considering getting anything else.

It’s worth noting that ‘Fiona’ was the Kindle’s internal code name at Amazon (and still shows up in a lot of the the URLs for Kindle support pages). In that case it was a reference to Diamond Age, a Neal Stephenson book featuring a powerful computer in the form of a hardback book.

So my money’s on a convertible netbook/tablet. Because all gamers need one of those!